Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number • Hacker News Board

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#11

Post by SixteenBlue » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 2:31 PM UTC

SeanLuke wrote: post #10

> The new number has 17,425,170 digits—just writing them down makes for a 22.45-megabyte text file Um, what? Even if you include commas... um, what?

If you include commas that's 23,233,560 characters, which would be 22.15 megabytes (at one byte per char). Maybe 22.45 is just a typo?

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#12

Post by ibotty » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 2:33 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #6

> Curtis Cooper of the University of Central Missouri moved one small step closer to Euclid’s infinity Within the first paragraph, the author displays ignorance of math that every Korean high school student knows.

that's a figure of speech.

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#13

Post by evilduck » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

SixteenBlue wrote: post #11

SeanLuke wrote: post #10

> The new number has 17,425,170 digits—just writing them down makes for a 22.45-megabyte text file Um, what? Even if you include commas... um, what?

If you include commas that's 23,233,560 characters, which would be 22.15 megabytes (at one byte per char). Maybe 22.45 is just a typo?

Maybe document container formatting overhead? Filesystem/disk block sizes?

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#14

Post by nicktelford » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 3:06 PM UTC

SixteenBlue wrote: post #11

SeanLuke wrote: post #10

> The new number has 17,425,170 digits—just writing them down makes for a 22.45-megabyte text file Um, what? Even if you include commas... um, what?

If you include commas that's 23,233,560 characters, which would be 22.15 megabytes (at one byte per char). Maybe 22.45 is just a typo?

There are line breaks at a fixed interval so that it wraps at 80 chars. I imagine that makes up the other ~300KB.

Edit: Line-breaks do indeed make up the bulk of the overhead, but it's also an HTML page so there's some boilerplate markup at the beginning and end of the file.

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#15

Post by ColinWright » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 3:30 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #9

vog wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mobile version loads fast and is more readable on the PC. Why would anyone want to visit the "non-mobile" version?

I might agree if the text wasn't so wide (edit: on my screen, at least). Longer lines are less readable because you can't easily find the next line when your eye flicks back to the left after finishing a line.

I use a narrow window, then I can scan the page down the middle reading all of the text as I go. Much faster and more convenient.

I also turn off the image to avoid the disruption. For me, reading the mobile version is much to be preferred.

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#16

Post by raldi » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

vog wrote: post #7

TobbenTM wrote: post #2

Non-mobile URL: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/05/curtis_co...

The mobile version loads fast and is more readable on the PC. Why would anyone want to visit the "non-mobile" version?

Because often it's a crippled or broken experience, where half the images are missing, or you can't zoom, or the text is cut off, or the columns too narrow.

Edit: Ironically, most of the issues above impact me the most when I really am on a mobile device.

Re: Why You Should Be Excited About the New Record for the Largest Prime Number

#17

Post by vog » Thu, Feb 07, 2013, 8:37 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #9

vog wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mobile version loads fast and is more readable on the PC. Why would anyone want to visit the "non-mobile" version?

I might agree if the text wasn't so wide (edit: on my screen, at least). Longer lines are less readable because you can't easily find the next line when your eye flicks back to the left after finishing a line.

Indeed, that's a disadvantage. However, this is easily fixed by resizing the browser window (reducing the width). I often do that with "normal" sites, too, if their text lines are too wide.